SAN FRANCISCO, CA, February 14—This past Valentine’s Day, a multiracial group of 60 tenants, antiracists, and members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) disrupted the capitalists’ love affair with their latest profit schemes by invading a dinner at the Keystone Social House. The Keystone is a fancy restaurant in a building owned by Mosser Capital, a racist, profiteering real estate developer.
The protesters occupied the restaurant for about 20 minutes, chanting, “Housing is a human right!” and “Have a Heart – Stop the Rent Increases!” It is true that in a communist society, housing is a working-class necessity that would be under the leadership and power of workers. But under capitalism that’s not true and not possible. Capitalism is a cutthroat, competitive system where profits rule. Capitalism has no heart.
But workers have a heart and a bold fighting spirit. They then occupied the Mosser hotel lobby to demand the owner agree to a meeting with the tenants. The hotel staff agreed to fax the demand letter. PLP members distributed 150 leaflets, several copies of CHALLENGE, and made some contacts. As the fight against Mosser Capital continues, we need to build a longterm, revolutionary movement for communism, a society with housing for all.
Racist land speculator
Mosser was founded in San Francisco in 1955 investing in “rent stabilized multi-unit buildings in high-demand emerging markets that have a high potential for rent growth,” but has quickly expanded to Oakland and Los Angeles since establishing Mosser Capital in 2012. Neveo Mosser, who is chair of the California Apartment Association got himself appointed to the San Francisco Rent Stabilization Board to protect his investments. That’s how capitalism works. The capitalist, in this case real estate tycoon Mosser, either controls the politicians or gets himself a position of political power, or both. He can then make the laws and regulations so that they benefit his business.
In the last three years, Mosser Capital has purchased over 20 multi-unit buildings in Oakland with over 600 units. All are rent-controlled. But, of course, Mosser is taking advantage of a “loophole” in the law by making “major improvements” to justify exemptions from rent control. One tenant said Mosser paved over a backyard garden and demanded tenants pay for it even though tenants liked the garden. Mosser says they can raise the rent annually by 10 percent until the “improvements” are paid off.
Real estate giants like Mosser, Wedgewood, and Blackstone spent $100 million to defeat statewide rent control Prop 10 in 2018. One feature of Prop 10 was “vacancy control” which would have extended rent control to units once they were vacated by tenants. Besides controlling politicians directly with “donations” and payoffs, capitalists also spend millions to control what laws are passed. Now they can harass tenants to move with their phony “major improvements” scam in the hope they can hike rents even faster.
Capitalist reforms are inadequate
The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) is organizing working-class tenants to take “direct actions” like this against Mosser, the Moms4Housing occupation of a vacant home in West Oakland (see CHALLENGE, 2/5/2020), and a four-month rent strike in a 14-unit building in East Oakland. Several of the Moms and the striking tenants came to the Mosser demonstration.
While PLP is encouraged by the increasing fightback by growing numbers of workers, we must focus on developing ties and communist consciousness among them. We have started two study groups where we discuss both the racist inequality in homelessness, and the difference between the capitalist commodity (exchange value) approach to housing and the communist (use value) approach of providing housing for needs of the working class.
Relying on electoral and legislative approaches to tenants’ rights like Prop 10 ignores the obvious dictatorship that capitalists have controlling the government and the media. Further, relying on liberal charities like the community land trusts, while able to help a few lucky working class families, gives the illusion that capitalism can solve the problems of all workers.
Recently, Wedgewood Properties, which initially agreed to sell “Moms’ House” to the land trust, now wants the new “appraised value” of $650K which is $150K more than the $500K Wedgewood paid for it last July. The capitalists fiddle while the Moms and their families struggle to be safe and secure in their homes. Fight for communism!